


sum of your broken parts

by xaves



Category: Captain America (Movies)
Genre: Angst, Angst with a Happy Ending, Blood, Bucky Barnes Gets a Hug, Bucky Barnes Needs a Hug, Bucky is tired, Captain America: Civil War (Movie) Spoilers, Flashbacks, Gen, Inarticulate Yearning, M/M, Memory Loss, Metaphors about bicycles, Pain
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2016-05-12
Updated: 2016-05-12
Packaged: 2018-06-07 21:48:56
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,329
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/6825817
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/xaves/pseuds/xaves
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Familiarity bred comfort and Bucky had been broken down so many times that he knew each crack and scar and scab better than he knew himself. He held onto those sensations until they were the only things holding him together. </p><p> </p><p>  <i>(Takes place before, during, after the final fight at the Siberian Hydra facility.)</i></p>
            </blockquote>





	sum of your broken parts

Bucky Barnes knew pain.

It was the most acute feeling that had followed him through the years, his most loyal partner.  He knew it when it was pushed into him, bullets tearing his flesh, knives sheathing themselves in his body, machines ripping his head to messy ribbons. Small Swiss biochemists taking him apart and putting him back together a little different from before. Red-haired assassins kneeing him in the groin. Multiple times.

Pain pushed in until it filled him, until he could push it back out. He knew how to inflict it, knew the knowledge sat deep enough in his bones that he would never be rid of it. Like riding a bike.

_Steve is hooting in his ear behind him as they speed down that big hill on 127th Street, legs akimbo, bike rattling dangerously. 13 th and 12th blur past them in a rush of colors and Steve’s hands are clutched around him, squeezing too tight. The wind makes his eyes water. _

_Bucky, the brakes. Buck, the brakes!_

_Bucky, stop, stopstopst-_

The ache is there now, an ever-shifting kaleidoscope of it to match his spiraling thoughts; road rash on his back, bruises along his arms, a split lip, a headache. The black-suited Wakandan man had been a challenge; it had almost felt good, the difficulty and actual struggle of it. His fingers still feel sticky from webbing. He sits back further into the seat, letting his body protest until it stings and burns. Metaphorical salt in the wound. Familiarity bred comfort and Bucky had been broken down so many times that he knew each crack and scar and scab better than he knew himself. He held onto those sensations until they were the only things holding him together.

Steve’s hands are firmly on the steering controls but Bucky can see his gaze is distracted, jaw tense to hold the words back behind his teeth.

Maybe he’s thinking about how to confront five Winter Soldiers at once.

Or if Sam had made it out of the airport.

Or Peggy. He had always been thinking about Peggy.

Or or or-

Bucky tears his eyes away, focuses on nothing in particular and feels physically awful, chooses to feel awful and lets its sink into his veins, feeling every bruise sing under his skin.

Bucky Barnes was getting to know fatigue. The kind that stuck with you, buried into your eyes and pulled your limbs down, made the world heavy, made you endure. The way his vision blurred at the edges, the way his thoughts strayed, the way his mouth went dry. The Winter Soldier had never truly grown tired; there had never been enough time on missions to truly need sleep. He was taken out of his box, he was put back, and the blood continued to stain the underside of his fingernails.

And yet.  Naturally falling asleep is a talent Bucky has fallen out of practice with, doesn’t  quite know how to shut himself off—so much easier when someone else did it for him with the push of a button. In war zones, you passed out in dirt until bugles or an urgent whisper pulled you back. In the cold, there was just more cold until there wasn’t and then there was only желание, ржавой, _god please no-_

He wants to say he’s exhausted now. It could assure Steve he’s still human – _maybe_ , surely there is enough left of him to qualify--  that he made room for other things next to the overwhelming guilt, but it sounds childish enough in his head that he doesn’t say anything at all. Seventy years of hibernation and still he just wanted to lie down, find a quiet place to roll out his mat while Jones and Dernier quietly muttered in French and stood watch, Dum Dum stoked the fire, and Steve’s charcoal quietly skidded on paper.

Another few years of artificial sleep might be worth it. At least he didn’t dream when he was frozen.

It wasn’t until Washington D.C. that the faces of every person, every victim came back, like a grim homecoming to reality. During the few hours he slept, he dreamt of them, and when he was awake, he blindly survived because he didn’t know what else to do. The Asset’s mission details had frayed like Steve’s old shoes, and no amount of newspapers could block out the cold of the Potomac when he had gone in to drag Captain America to shore and a small part of himself believed he was Bucky again and felt warmer for it.

He had killed so many people but saving one – saving _Steve --_ had felt, just for a moment, like a moment of redemption. Like a debt repaid. One less body.

Not that it was enough. It would never be enough.

Steve clears his throat and Bucky steels himself with trepidation, watching the other man’s gaze fall nervously to the floor.

The plane hums. A few sensors beep quietly.

A beat passes, and he sighs instead. Of course. So long with no letters or phone calls but now they had nothing to say. What was there to say?

You’re forgiven, Bucky.

No.

It wasn’t your fault, Bucky.

It kinda was.

You’re my friend.  
  
Is that what we are?

_“What did they do to you, Bucky? Zola, what did he do?”_

_A shrug. His lips twist and crackle into a rusty smile and he can’t meet his eyes, can’t see bright blue concern directed at him when it isn’t worth it, isn’t deserved. He thinks about repeating his name and rank as his blood runs out on the operating table and his teeth break and his throat blackens._

_“I’m fine.”_

_No. No. Don’t look at me like that. His hands tighten around his gun._

_“Listen. Wasn’t nothing as bad as watching you dance with Betty Singer at the Roseland a few summers ago.”_

_It’s a distraction and they let it happen. So easy._

_They’re both laughing and Bucky feels like a bad joke, hollow and empty._

The two men sink back into themselves and Bucky flinches as he leans into his sore muscles.

Bucky Barnes thrived in silence.

Silence was still, dark, cold. Silence coated situations in snow and let him breath and relax. It let him pull the trigger in peace, taking that small breath before his bullets hit home. Let him walk unnoticed because when it was around Steve, Steve’s light had always shone too bright, too loud, pushing Bucky forward when he wanted quiet, wanted to finish the war and go home.

This was another breed of silence entirely, drawing out discomfort and an itchy anxiety.

“We’re almost there.” Steve mutters. A faint outline of mountains pepper the distance. Out of time.

Nothing to say, so much to say, and they had no time, all this time and no time.

Bucky had tasted his salvation. God, he wanted more. For selfish reasons, for himself, for Steve, for everyone. Before he can stop himself, Bucky’s creaky voice pushes past his lips, the drowning man’s last desperate attempt to reach the surface.

“Steve.” The abrupt word feels warm on his tongue. Bucky exhales slowly, sees the other man turn to look over his shoulder, so broad and strong, the wrong shoulder, the wrong Steve, but this was _Steve._

_Bucky, the brakes. Buck, the brakes._

“When all of this is over,” Breathe in again. Breathe.

 “When it’s _over_ -” He repeats, hope getting the best of him, “I need-”

_What did they do to you, Bucky?_

“You’re the only one-- I need you. I _need_ \-- t _o_ get better.” It’s so hard to speak, the words catch on his tongue like thick smoke. He thinks of buying plums because Steve’s mother liked them and then wondering how he knows Romanian. He had barely strung ten words together in so long, when had he managed to learn Romanian, Russian, German, French? Но почему,  aber warum, men varför?

Words rip themselves off from a scraped out space in his chest.

“I want to get better.”

“Bucky.” Steve looks like he did on the bridge, in the Bucharest apartment, and he can’t see pity but it could be there, could be buried like the pain, the exhaustion, the silence-

_Bucky, stop, stopstopst-_

“I’m tired. I’m tired of forgetting. I want to stay. This time, I want-”

Bucky Barnes doesn’t know what he wants. There’s so much missing, so many gaps left unfilled and sore like an open wound. The metal arm creaks as his fingers curl into themselves.

He had a mission and he had failed and there was nothing left ahead. He had been at an edge of a precipice and forgotten to jump, leaving nothing but adrenaline and disappointment in himself.

“I want to stop.” He jumped. “I want to be done.”

A slow smile tugs up Steve’s lips. Bucky feels the waters of the Potomac again but they’re pushing up, they’re going to shore, and Steve is still breathing and he feels _it_ again and wants more.

They had crashed that bike. Steve sprained his wrist, Bucky got a broken nose. They had laughed quietly as they leaned on each other and tottered home. And Steve, nursing his hand, shook his head. “Not gonna forget this one.”

And Bucky had laughed around the blood staining his teeth and threw an arm around his shoulders. “Never. We’re gonna get old and look back and laugh about this someday.”

“As long as you remember this was your idea.”

“I’ll remember, Steve. I’ll remember.”

 

\-------------

 

His memories are there, half-realized, like unfilled outlines on a coloring book, but nonlinear and unorganized. And upended library that had been organized by a stranger and toppled by another. The page were out of order and smudged, leaving him in a pile of a story that belonged to two different people, ten different languages, thousands of story lines. He should have been angry then.

Bucky dug deep and found Howard Stark and found he had ripped that in two. Heard the pages shredding when Tony moved after Steve, heard the choke of Maria Stark as she asphyxiated under his hand.

The anger came then, fury at the mess left in Hydra’s wake, mindless rage pushing his limbs and tearing at the light in Tony’s chest, ripping at the weak point, the heart. Because he had pulled Steve out, he had saved the punk, and Tony couldn’t stain that single clean page, he wouldn’t let him leave a single crease.

But he had killed Tony Stark’s mother and father and he knew that, too.

He knew pain, knew it when he lay wheezing into the concrete floor, shaking at the loss, watching blood drip from his nose – it felt so very familiar – desperately watching Steve stumble, fall, but _win_ , of course, the Star-Spangled Man with the Plan, the familiar tune plays in his ringing ears and Steve is so damn bright and it’s so damn hard to focus.

He knew exhaustion, leaning against Steve, wheezing around the blood in his mouth. Wishing the war was over and he could go home.

“It’s over, Buck.”

Is it?

Bucky briefly lets his head fall on Steve’s broad shoulder and doesn’t know.

He knew silence. Only the thud of boots as Steve lead them out of the rubble, back to the plane. There’s nothing to say. So much to be said and the words were thick and hard to manage, so all he can reply with is “I’m tired.”

Steve’s tired, too. Has to be. His breath is uncharacteristically harsh, sounds like asthma again. Breathe in again, breathe. There’s a need, a sick temptation to ask Steve if he’s worth it, ask why, _why_ , but the answer terrifies him because none of this is worth a damn thing. None of this had to happen if he had just stayed in the ice.

“I know. I know. Come on.” Bucky feels Steve’s hand clench around his waist for a moment as he lowers him back into his seat.  Everything feels lighter. Feels safe. Feels like Kreischberg. Temperature was a bit different, though. “How does it-?”

“Honey, we have to go back, I forgot something, back at the… the…” Bucky weakly wiggles his mangled stump, only slightly grimacing, only slightly sounding like he had a deflated lung, which is something. It hurts to move, it hurts to make bad jokes, but Bucky knows pain, he chooses it and he studies it so Steve doesn’t have to know. Wishes he had a good punch line.

Steve almost laughs in disbelief at Bucky’s rueful expression, almost willing the distraction to pass. Instead, he quiets and braces a hand behind Bucky’s neck, demanding attention. And Bucky tries to give it, pulling his head up, blinking and raw.

“Bucky, you’re done.”

Bucky swallows and doesn’t know. He looks at the red running out alongside Steve’s mouth, thinks that won’t look good for the newsreels, reaches out with a thumb to brush it off, misses and grabs the front of Steve’s shirt for balance instead.

He remembers.

They’re flying down 127th on a bike with goddamn busted breaks.

They have to stop and Bucky can’t figure out how. Streets fly by too fast and Steve is screaming and _Bucky, the brakes. Buck, the brakes!_

But Steve is leaning in now, too bright, too much, the wrong Steve but always _Steve_ , and they can’t stop because the _brakes_ -

They push and push until Steve is holding Bucky, pushing warmth in until it filled him, until he could push it back out, consumed by light, and they’re a pile of limbs in a trash pile, the bike a wreck nearby, and Steve’s _bleeding_ and breathing gently into his ear. Bucky breathes in-

“Stop. Bucky, you can stop now.”

And breathe out.

“Okay.” And he believes it. He does it. He stops.

The bike crashes, they’re a mess. But they’ve stopped together and the only thing left to do is limp home.

 

 

 

 

**Author's Note:**

> I don't know what i'm doing but I know that I like boys in pain. Many thanks to thegreatgnatsby for validating my existence and [starknip](http://archiveofourown.org/users/Starknip) for giving this a read-through, god Stucky ruined my life.


End file.
